Combined Teacher Only Day

We have had a great start to the year with a Combined Te Hiku and Kiakohekohe cluster Teacher Only Day at the Treaty of Waitangi grounds.This is the first time we have combined together for this day. We had around 140 teachers come for the day. Being the first day back for teachers the request was not to have our teachers being spoke at for long periods of time. The teachers wanted hands on practicle based activities that where not for to long. We put an agenda together at the end of last year utilising on local talents and experts. Thanks to Monica and her great team from the education centre at the TOW and also the great staff from Tautoro School who bought along there resources and shared the great teaching and learning they are presenting at their school. The day was made more special being held at such a spiricial and sacrid place. The feedback and conversation were very positive and enthusiastic. Nexts years TOD will be combinded again and be held in the Te Hiku cluster area we have started conversations allready as it will be hard to bet the great day we had this year. This was the agenda for the day and some photos.

Hapara Champion Educator

For the past 6 weeks I have been participating in the Hapara Champion Educator course online. It was worthwhile completting the course to get a good understanding of the Kaupapa of the whole program and why it was created. It is quite humbling to know it was created in New Zealand for Manaiaklani and is now a world wide resource very popular in th USA and Canadian schools. It was a good reminder to learn about how to use Dashboard and highlights especially the clear formative assesment purpose of them. The most I learnt was about Workspaces as I have not used or created many so it was good to get to create a resource in workspaces and practise using all the great tools available. I enjoyed the course so much I have registered for the next level Hapara Scholar which starts in January 2021.

Amplify Basic Facts Online Toolkit

 Term 3 toolkits I decided to do another workshop based around Mathematics and statistics. My last ones were very popular and seem to be of high demand. So I choose Basic Facts always an area of need and concern. I started it in lockdown so I had my site I developed already started and just needed to add to it. My big idea was how to link the creation into the teaching of basic facts and using a lot more of the online manipulatives to model number sense and understanding of the facts. I had 57 registered to attend and had 36 turn up for the hangout. I was concerned that it would become a lecture at that high number and still wanted to include some activities. So I included a padlet to assess what our teachers are using currently to teach the Basic facts. I then decided to give an activity at the end so the teachers had a chance to be in the students' shoes. I got some great feedback. 

Book Creator

 It was great to introduce the book creator tool into cyber smart lessons. An exciting and vibrant tool that creates books, fun templates, and an easy way to add a voice recording. The students enjoyed the tool and I gave them a lot of time to explore and try out the many tools. The teacher created an account and shared the code with the students so all their books were in the class library which made it easy to share the learning on the big screen.  I think teachers will use this option more in the creative part of learning.  

Level 2 Tomorrow

Thursday 14 May we move to Level 2 retail shops can open again, gyms, hairdressers (I am booked for next Friday lucky I am not grey yet!!!) Restaurants, and beauticians, normality in the economic sector start. Schools go back on Monday 18th May.  At the moment with the distancing of a meter still in place and staggering lunchtime and morning teas, I am not wanted back till the following week the 25 May. Schools and Teachers want to settle students back into routines and socializing but hardest of all the health and safety regulations. Wash your hands, wash your hands, wash your hands!!!!!! So I carry on working from home. It is starting to send me into a mental state, I am missing company and people. Stuck in a house for nearly 9 weeks is a long time. You get very lonely and bored with your own company very easily.
There has been some good distance learning happening a lot of teachers are enjoying it. What changes will schools make or do differently when schools are back?  Some great relationships have been established with whanau and this needs to continue it is a partnership between the whanau, and school to educate children. Will our very capable self motivated students be able to drive their own learning more and not have to wait for the teacher.  Will school devices be sent home and used more to enhance the learning. these great articles have been coming out which are a good read.

Digital learning 2025
Classroom or Community

Level 3 Still Working From Home

Another week of Hangout Meets with students in the class hangouts and with teachers. We had 2 good workshops with Harley on Monday going over the basics or creating movies. With this Pandemic and the History behind it, we have suggested the Movie festival theme for 2020 be about our lives in Lockdown or surviving COVID 19. A great idea for looking back in years ahead to see how we survived. The students are excited and the poor parents will be losing their phones over the next week while students are videoing. Look out Peter Jackson!!!! I have joined some class hangouts I am not sure if I was a help or a disturbance as the students where so excited to see another familiar face. It was great to listen to them talking about their creations and learning at home. Some have really got very creative and with the support of parents and grandparents, they have become projects that keep developing. I have been commenting on student and class blogs. We had our second Junior teacher catch-up today we only had 7 teachers but they had some great conversations and shared ideas. Students are starting to lose motivation and are sharing learning less and less as the weeks go by. We also need to work with parents on commenting on blogs across the clusters. We will find out tomorrow when and if we are going to level 2 or 2.5. We had 2 days of no cases recorded and then today we had 2 cases and another death. They are going to announce what the level will look like for education. we had a great Tuhi Mai Tuhi Atu hangout on blog tips, I got some great ideas and can now answer questions I often get asked about blogs.

Day 25

The big announcement was made yesterday we have one more week then we are on level 3. Schools will go back on the 29 April only for students of essential workers and parents that are working. They are requesting to keep you, children, at home if you can.
I will carry on working from home this just means more hangouts and supporting teachers distantly.
We have had many online toolkits this week on screencastify, for support teachers, Hapara workspaces and Junior Slide slam tomorrow.
There was a great turn out from support teachers who are doing a great job commenting on student blogs and joining in the class hangouts.
I have been exploring with audio in slides using vocaroo for the audio files. This is my first attempt so I can show junior teachers tomorrow. This has been a great time to have a chance to explore some of the new tools and updates. 

Week 3 Lockdown

Week 3 of lockdown nearly over we head into week 4. Will it be the last week or will lockdown level 4 be extended?? The daily case numbers are down but our death rates are on the increase as it has spread to a couple of elderly homes and the elderly are not strong enough to fight the virus.

With a nice break with Easter just finished it was good to watch some movies, get out in the garden and do some cooking.

But today is a day that will also go down in history as New Zealand schools start teaching from home or distance learning while the country is in lockdown. I have had emails, phone calls and texts from teachers all weekend with the common title "HELP".

• How do I embed a video?
• The sound is not working in the video?
• I can not get the video embedded in the site.
• My site links are not working.

With the panic and stress coming from teachers I, of course, made how-to videos and shared them with teachers and also sent instructions. I wanted to support and release some of the stress they were having.

I have set up myself in the backroom as our weather has turned very cold and wet my two men at home are now inside a lot more and are very noisy and distracting. 

I have had to move the desk around from under the window as I had a clear view over my shoulder of the pathway to the toilet and while in a hangout my 18year old son wandered through in his boxes.. A good lesson for teachers and students at home in Hangouts to make sure you have a wall behind you. 

This week is a short week but we have support hangouts today and tomorrow for teachers in the Te Hiku and Kaikohekohe clusters on Google hangout Meet and Hapara and DFI on Friday. I am also creating videos for teachers to add to their sites. Some are how-to videos for rewindable learning and others are just to say Hi and connect with students. I thought I might do some of me reading stories for the junior classes. I will also remind the students to be cyber smart while on their devices and online. It is frustrating when you hear on the news that we can not trust students. We should just block everything. That will not teach students to be cyber smart. I notice my email box starting to fill up so I had better go. Good luck to all teachers, students, and Whanau with online learning. 

Limit the Links

One week has gone very quick when you have a long list of things to do. I have been part of 4 online DFI workshops which has been good to connect with others across the country. It is also an opportunity to keep up to date with the google resources and changes that are happening daily especially as the world is going to distance learning. Also to hear Dorothy make the connects to the Manaiakalani Pedagogy.
I have made class sets of blogs, added resources to the Te hiku site, created a Distance learning page to share resources. I also realized the links to school class sites needed updating so I had to get them off the school web pages and add them to the Te Hiku site.
Daily we have been having catch-ups as a team in a google hangout from 3.30-4pm which has been great to connect and make sure we are all feeling safe and sharing the correct information at such an unsure time in education. The key document for us is Limit the Links.

DFI By Hangout Through Lock Down.

Today Friday 27 March day 2 of the lockdown Manaiakalani did a DFI (Digital fluency Intensive) by google hangout from all across New Zealand. Dorothy leads the day and lots of facilitators were there to support and lead some presentations. Everyone was asking questions in the comments. Then for the leveling up sessions 2 or 3 participants were paired up with a facilitator and we went into our own hangouts and supported small groups through setting up a google form and google sheets. The small groups worked well with them being able to share their screens and me talking them through things. Then I could also share my screen and model for them and they could follow on their device. Having 2 devices for the day made it a lot easier to follow the slide show and the speaker and comments. With the corona 19 lockdown teachers are being forced to use their devices and are stepping up and taking more risks and trying new things. They are going outside their comfort zones. They realize after the 2-week break which starts today, when school goes back on Wednesday 15 April we will still be in lockdown and will be doing learning through distance learning on the class learning site.

Online toolkit

This week I presented my online toolkit on Amplify Talk Moves. It was great to get back into my Mathematics and statistics hat. This presentation I made a very hands-on one with the teachers doing exactly what you would get the students to do. It was hard to judge the time as it is teachers, not students completing the activities. Some of the main areas, I wanted to emphasize was the purpose and big idea of the lesson. We also looked at a couple of tools to help amplify the student's voice and discussed and shared ideas of how we could turbocharge the get ideas and voice of the students. I felt it went well and feel after looking at the cluster data Maths and statistics is an area we need to focus on.

Blog Post Analysis

This week I have been working with students completing Robyn Anderson from Panmure Bridge,
her wonderfull lesson on statistical analysis on blog posts.  I role modeled my graph with the students and we unpacked my graphs. I am working in January but not in schools so I have lots of time to catch up on readings, research and investigating other great ideas and work. So I have the time to post to my blog. December is my busiest month so didn't have the time to share to my blog.
My goal for this year is to increase my posts from about 2 a month up to at least 6 a month. This means I need to take the time to share and it can be a mixture of things. This is a good challenge for me and I know I can do it.